Healthcare Chaplaincy

Taking our work to Church

Abstract

The Christian church as traditionally constituted is facing grave decline. For many, the church is an inhospitable place in which to voice questions and to express pain. Do hospital chaplains have a role to play in creating a church in which people feel more able to express the varieties of their spiritual journey? The author suggests three ways in which chaplains might take their work to church: - by enabling more meaningful and varied forms of worship; by sharing their experience of honestly meeting people where they are; by encouraging a sense of ‘sacred space’.